The Boggart
by KJS X-OVER
Summary: This is the prequel to Broken. What is Hermione hiding? Rated for gruesome themes.


**A.N. Well, this is my prequel to Broken. It's something extremely different from anything I've ever written, but I hope you like it.**

Professor Lupin hadn't had enough time to let everyone face their Boggarts, so that is what the small group of third years were going to do during a free period. There was a small group of Hufflepuffs, a few Ravenclaws, a handful Slytherins, and her, Hermione Granger.

If anyone took the time to see her, they would notice the fear in her eyes, the shaking in her eyes, the small tilt to her chin that showed she was mustering up some courage. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending who you were, no one watched her. She was preparing to face her biggest fear, and she had the sinking feeling that it was not McGonagall telling her that she had failed everything.

It was pure luck that saved her from having the whole school find out her past, her secrets. Professor Lupin had decided to let them face the Boggarts by themselves in a small room, not in front of everyone. The relief that went through Hermione was almost tangible, and the person sitting next to her wondered for a split second whether she was all right before banishing the thought from their head. This was Hermione Granger, she was not afraid of anything.

Hermione's relief was so great that she did not question and analyze everything with her usual fervor. She didn't stop to question why she was the only Gryffindor, why the other 3rd years didn't have to face their Boggarts by themselves, why Professor Lupin's eyes rested on her while announcing the news about the Boggarts, why his eyes seemed sad, overall, everything. She was normally not like that, and it showed how panicked she was.

Professor Lupin stood up and everyone looked at him. "All right everybody, remember the incantation: _Ridikulus_! If you have any trouble, feel free to come outside for a few seconds until you are ready to face your Boggart. Ready?"

The packs of students went in and faced their Boggarts until only Hermione was left. She was shaking, not too much visibly so as to not attract attention, but enough for Professor Lupin to notice. He hesitated before leading Hermione into the room, but in the end, Hermione was left in there. She took a deep breath before approaching the wardrobe, but in the end she could stall no longer. She stared at the Boggart quietly, shocked, before everything she tried to leave in the crevices of her mind came rushing back.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Hermione was seven when it happened, the medical test that would change her world forever. Her mother had been feeling unsteady for a while and she had decided to go to her doctor for a check-up. Hermione had been sure her mother would be fine; she had a weak immune system but it didn't matter, her mother always pulled through in the end.

She was not fine. When her mother had come home, she had reassured her that she was fine, that it was probably the flu, regardless of the fact that flu-season had passed. Two weeks later, when the results had come back, it had been found that her mother was pregnant. The news shocked the family to the core, for even though Hermione was young, she understood that her mother had almost died when she had her. Her father had reacted to the news strangely; he had grabbed her mother and pulled her into his lap, holding her and stroking her hair, as if to feel that she was still there, with him. Hermione saw this and slipped quietly out of the room to let her parents have time together.

When Hermione had been conceived, her parents had been overjoyed. The two dentists had been trying to have children for a long time, and when they learned their efforts had not been in vain, euphoria had set into the couple. Their happiness was short-lived, for the doctors told her mother that the pregnancy was likely to kill her; she was just not strong enough to carry a child. Mrs. Granger had refused to get rid of Hermione; the baby was a part of her and she couldn't kill it. She decided to go against the odds and have her.

The pregnancy was tough from the get-go. The morning sickness had been brutal, causing her to throw up all the food, making her body seem emaciated from the lack of nutrients. After the sickness had stopped, she was weak and had to go into her resting period earlier than normal. The hardest part was when Hermione had come prematurely; she was due in December but had been born in September. She had almost died at one point, but had pulled through, and at 5:47 a.m., little Hermione Jane Granger had been born. She was named after Hermes, for she had been delivered by the gods.

This had been 7 years before, and she had been warned against getting pregnant, but it seemed that she had failed. Mrs. Granger was by then three-and-a-half months along and an abortion would kill her and the child. Then again, if she had the pregnancy full-term, she and the child would most likely die. She was literally in a rock and a hard place.

During the 6th month of the pregnancy, during the night, Mr. Granger had woken up to his wife's screams. He had turned on the light and found Mrs. Granger soaked from her stomach down in blood. Hermione had run to her parent's room and saw the scene before her. Her father called the ambulance frantically, but by the time they arrived, Mrs. Granger had died from blood loss, and consequentially, so had the baby. Hermione had stood the entire time in a corner of the room, watching the scene in shock, taking it all in. Her fragile mind took in the verdict: her mother and sister had died and she and her father were alone in the world.

The funeral was a small affair, with only a few friends in attendance; both the Grangers had been only children and Mrs. Granger's parents were dead. Mr. Granger's parents hadn't been able to go and had expressed their condolences via a letter. Next to Mr. Granger stood Hermione, her expression solemn, her eyes empty. She looked like a porcelain doll of grief, dressed in black clothes with tears running down her cheeks.

The stillborn had been buried with Mrs. Granger, and at that moment, Hermione wished to be in the casket with her mother too. She had loved her mother, had longed for her mother to look at her with pride and love in her eyes, something that had not been common during those short months of the pregnancy. The only thing that had brought a smile to her face had been seeing Hermione's grades, otherwise, her face was in a contortion of pain.

Shortly after the funeral, Mr. Granger, a broken man, had found a friend in the bottle. Mrs. Granger and he had found love in each other at a young age, had been each others best friends, had gone to dental school together, had started a dental practice together, had been each other's everything. When he had heard the news that she might have died the first time around, he had nearly gone crazy; he could not go on without her. After that, he took every precaution to assure that his wife wouldn't conceive, but in the end, he failed. Her death had hit hard, and he couldn't even look at Hermione without remembering the wife he lost.

That year had been the worst of Hermione's life. Her mother was dead, her father didn't care about her. There was rarely food in the house and soap for washing clothes was scarce. She had to go to school in clothes that were unwashed, she had to take cold showers when her father forgot about the bills. When her father came home from work, he went straight to his wet bar and served himself drink after drink, or, if he was lazy, drank straight from the bottle. He often cried out while drinking, wailed to his dead wife, cursed his dead child for being conceived and then dying also. Hermione had often wondered if that might have made the difference, if her mother hadn't died in vain. In the end, she was left with only questions unanswered and a broken heart.

When her father drank and began to cry out, Hermione often tuned him out by trying to get into her schoolwork or books; it was the nights that were the problem. Her father's cries could be heard all the way to her room, to which she answered by crawling under her bed and curling into a ball.

Then, the wailing nights stopped. Hermione had felt grateful, but then her characteristic curiosity caused her to go check on her father and what he did when the lights were off.

She had tip-toed all the way down the stairs and walked slowly to her father's bar. He sat in his chair, with a pistol in front of him, looking at it as if it had the answers to his questions. She had run quickly up the stairs, but the following nights, she repeated the process. She stood in the shadows, looking at him, a child staring at her father, seeing what he would do. This routine continued until one night, her father broke it.

He had walked to a cupboard, taken out something that Hermione recognized as a silencer. Her heart pounded as her eyes followed him and she put together the pieces of the puzzle. This was the night, the night that would end it all. She looked on in shock and an epiphany came to her: she had been waiting for this. She had been waiting for the day when her father would die too and she would be alone in the world. Her father was already a ghost, and this would just make it a reality.

It seemed to happen in slow motion, her father holding the pistol, bringing it up slowly to his temple, his finger pressing the trigger, and finally, him blowing his brains out. Hermione stood through all of this, shocked, silent, but the vibrant red was too much. She started screaming, screaming, screaming, couldn't stop, didn't think she could, believed she would go crazy and never stop screaming. Her eyes were unseeing as neighbors burst into the house, wondering about what was causing the child to scream, wondering if her father had finally gone off the deep end and killed her. Her eyes were unseeing as police arrived at the scenes, they were unseeing as coroners arrived to take the body away, they were unseeing as she was taken away by the officers to find her family.

Her mind had snapped, she had receded into a place all on her own where she didn't feel the pain and the loneliness. She was taken in by her grandmother and grandfather, both old people who weren't sure what to do with the little girl who had been abandoned by the world. She finally snapped out of it but she was never the same.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The Boggart was her mother and father, her mother covered in blood and her father's head was completely cracked open. The Boggart was exaggerated, everything was more bloody and gruesome than it had been those nights. She stared as her parents corpses stood, staring at her. They looked on, Hermione in her school uniform trembling, eyes wide and filled with horror as her parents corpses began to decompose, their flesh began to fall off; it was straight out from a Muggle horror movie. A brief thought flashed through her mind of what was supposed to destroy a Boggart when one was too terrified to even talk, but it quickly disappeared.

Her mother moved forward, disgust and dislike in her eyes, and all of a sudden something appeared in her hand. It was the corpse of a small baby, a premature one it seemed. Mrs. Granger held the baby sweetly, softly, and Mr. Granger walked behind her, as if to show Hermione what a happy family they were, regardless of death. Hermione stared on, and all of a sudden, her family looked at her. They looked at her with hate-filled eyes, cold and full of anger, and all Hermione could do was look back. They watched as she subconsciously lifted her wand, and as her mouth worked to say the spell before they disappeared completely. All that was left of them was the flesh that fell off of them, and the shaken Hermione they left in their wake.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Professor Lupin was worried. Hermione had been with her Boggart for 20 minutes and she had not come out, even for the break. He walked into the small room; he knew about her past and how much she tried to hide it. He knew that she had to face it, regardless of her fear. He only hoped he had not been mistaken and that Hermione Granger had not broken.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Shortly after going to live with her grandparents, Hermione Granger had gone back to school; her therapist felt that she needed to be in her element, which was school. She was the quiet child, but had been approached several times by children who looked at her with pity. Everyone knew her story, the town was small and her grandparents were well known, so it was no surprise. Hermione Granger was a proud person; people pitying her was something she never wanted to experience.

When the children saw how she refused to be with anyone else, they just saw her as a snobbish stuck-up know-it-all bookworm. They called her names, tore her books, picked on her, everything. With every thing the kids did, her resolve to be better only increased.

Of course, it was not the taunts that caused her to become obsessed with becoming better. She still remembered how proud her parents were when she received good grades, when she was placed in the top of her class, when she received awards and acknowledgement for her intelligence. She remembered how her mother smiled during her painful pregnancy only when Hermione got good grades. She promised herself to be the best, to be number one, to make her parents proud. It would be a promise Hermione kept for the rest of her life.

When her Hogwarts letter arrived, she was ecstatic about the idea of being somewhere that no one knew her. It was so appealing that she abandoned her muggle life without looking back.

Of course, no one would know her tale. She could not afford to be pitied by everyone, seen as "little orphan Janie" as she was dubbed in primary school. She decided to tell everyone she lived with her muggle dentist parents, was an only child, and was overall normal. She stuck to this story even when she realized it would help her friend Harry to know that he wasn't alone, that she lived in the same situation. But she kept her mouth shut.

The lies accumulated, one after another. When she said that she sent letters to her parents, she was actually sending letters to her grandparents. When she introduces her friends to her grandparents, she hoped that her friends would believe the lie. And so Hermione's life was a carefully constructed web of lies.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

When Remus Lupin enetered the small room, he was expecting a lot of things, but Hermione Granger curled up into a ball in the corner, he was not. He walked into the room, and was shocked when he saw the pain in Hermione's eyes, they were as empty and hollow as his. They were not the eyes of a child, they were too old and broken. Her walked toward her an kneeled next to her and asked her, "What did you see?"

"Professor McGonagall, she told me I failed everything!"

**A.N. So here is the prequel to Broken. It is really more detailed than anything I have ever written. I honestly don't know where the idea came from, but I needed to write it out. This story honestly depresses me and it's way more angsty and tragic than anything I've ever written. Constructive Criticism is appreciated. **


End file.
